Random reminder

Press, 27 October 1982, Page 40

Random reminder

DOWN IN THE MOUTH

There is a way to use a vacuum cleaner to fill an eiderdown. It does indeed involve blowing rather than sucking. All things are possible in a Universe which contains the Ultimate Answer. The Ultimate Answer is 42. This answer is not very helpful, though, when a gentleman wants to fill an eiderdown. To fill the bag of the machine with feathers and to attach the hose of the machine to the blowing end of the machine is to risk bewilderment when no feathers issue from the nozzle.

A moment’s thought will show that there has been a flaw in the reasoning. The bag of the machine is that part of the machine which has been designed expressly to catch feathers.

The gentleman removed the bag from the machine, switched on 900 watts of raw, throbbing power, and fed feathers into the vortex.

Ugh! thought the serviceman. Cooked feathers. Cooked motor. Umpty-ump dollars, and not covered by guarantee. The gentleman would not be pleased. It was a brand-new motor, too. The gentleman had paid umpty-ump dollars only a short time previously. H 9 had run out of porous paper dust-bag liners. (Which make emptying dust so much cleaner, easier, and kinder to sensitive hands — Advert.) He had used a polythene bag as a liner. Apart from the motor melting, it hadn’t done much for the suction, either.